Goldberg and Guthrie

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Rolling Stone Article Update

Below, I excerpted the part of the article dealing with the specific instances.

CAP went ahead and digested the other part of the article for us--the part dealing with the systemic nature of the abuse:

IRAQ – PENTAGON WITHHOLDING PRISON DOCUMENTS: Rolling Stone reports that newly-revealed Pentagon documents show how far up the food chain the Iraq prison abuse scandal goes. The documents, withheld by the Pentagon from Gen. Antonio Taguba's report, "make clear that responsibility for...abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions." For instance, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, "who is now in charge of all military prisons in Iraq," was dispatched to Abu Ghraib by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August. In a report marked "secret," Miller recommended that military police at the prison be "actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees." After his plan was adopted, guards began depriving prisoners of sleep and food, subjecting them to painful "stress positions," and terrorizing them with dogs. The Rolling Stone report adds more evidence to an earlier Newsweek report that said President Bush, "along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on [the] secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door" to the prison abuse scandal in the first place.